United States of America, Plaintiff-appellee, v. Frank C. Marolda, Defendant-appellant, 615 F.2d 867 (9th Cir. 1980)

Frank C. Marolda appeals his conviction for embezzling from a labor union, 29 U.S.C. § 501(c). The principal points on appeal concern the instructions to the jury. Because of error in the instructions, the judgment is reversed.

The International Union of Hotel and Restaurant Employees decided, for economic reasons, to merge two of its locals, and on October 1, 1975, the newly merged Local 19 was formed. The International installed Marolda as Local 19's chief executive officer. At its first meeting, the Executive Board of the new local adopted an automobile expense allowance which provided $300 (raised a year later to $400) a month to officers and staff of the local who used their own cars for union business. The Board apparently also agreed at this meeting to terminate the practice of charging purchases on oil company credit cards that had been issued for union business. Marolda, however, continued to use his oil company credit card while also receiving the monthly auto allowance. In October 1977, when one of the Board members complained of Marolda's continued use of a credit card, Marolda surrendered the card. The indictment and conviction for embezzling were based on Marolda's double billing by using the credit card for about two years.

On May 3, 1978, the Executive Board voted to approve all expenditures made to pay oil company bills during the period when Marolda had been using the credit card. Two weeks after the Board action, Marolda appeared with his attorneys in the office of the government prosecutor and discussed the possibility of an indictment for embezzlement and mail fraud. Three days later, the Executive Board of Local 19 passed a resolution specifically ratifying Marolda's use of the credit card. The following month the general membership of Local 19 also approved this resolution.

Congress in 29 U.S.C. § 501(c) made embezzling from a labor union a federal criminal offense. That section applies to "(a)ny person who embezzles, steals or unlawfully and willfully abstracts or converts to his own use * * * any of the moneys * * * of a labor organization of which he is an officer * * * ."

The district court defined the essential elements of this offense in its instructions to the jury.¹  Both sides agree that, under the court's instruction, Marolda could be convicted if the government established that he had used union funds with the specific intent to defraud the union and if he then had no good faith belief that his use of the funds benefited the union. The parties disagree, however, about whether the government should also have been required to prove absence of actual and valid authorization and absence of actual union benefit as elements under the statute. If not statutory elements, Marolda contends that the wording of the indictment²  required their proof in this case.

The Ninth Circuit has not previously addressed the question of the elements under § 501(c),³  and there is little agreement elsewhere on it. Of the six circuits that have considered the issue, three have defined § 501(c) in a way consistent with the district court's instruction. United States v. Bane, 583 F.2d 832 (6th Cir. 1978), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 1127, 99 S. Ct. 1044, 59 L. Ed. 2d 88 (1979);⁴  United States v. Santiago, 528 F.2d 1130 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 425 U.S. 972, 96 S. Ct. 2169, 48 L. Ed. 2d 795 (1976);⁵  United States v. Boyle, 157 U.S.App.D.C. 166, 482 F.2d 755 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 414 U.S. 1076, 94 S. Ct. 593, 38 L. Ed. 2d 483 (1973).⁶  Two other circuits suggested that a § 501(c) conviction requires, in addition to fraudulent intent, proof that the expenditure was not validly authorized by the union. United States v. Nell, 526 F.2d 1223, 1232 (5th Cir. 1976); United States v. Goad, 490 F.2d 1158 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, 417 U.S. 945, 94 S. Ct. 3068, 41 L. Ed. 2d 665 (1974).⁷  The First Circuit has held that, although an expenditure was not authorized, a showing of actual benefit to the union would result in an acquittal under § 501(c). Colella v. United States, 360 F.2d 792, 804 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 829, 87 S. Ct. 65, 17 L. Ed. 2d 65 (1966).⁸ 

We need not resolve the question of the statutory elements here because a prejudicial variance between the offense as charged in the indictment and that defined by the court's instructions requires reversal. Should the government choose to retry Marolda, it will have to prove the offense as charged in the indictment.

As United States v. Bane, supra, illustrates, the finding that a union official acted in bad faith does not necessarily include the finding that the expenditure was not authorized or that it yielded no benefit to the union. Whether Marolda's use of the credit card was properly authorized was an issue written into the indictment and hotly contested at trial. Under the district court's instructions, however, there is no way of knowing what the jury decided on this issue. By the charge to the jury, the court first dwelt upon the language in the indictment concerning authorization at some length and then later treated it as surplusage, effectively telling the jury to disregard it.⁹ 

The indictment specifically charged that Marolda had acted "without proper authorization and without benefit to said Local." That language may well have had an antecedent bearing on the grand jury's decision to indict, whether or not a legally sufficient allegation could have been made without it. See Ex parte Bain, 121 U.S. 1, 7 S. Ct. 781, 30 L. Ed. 849 (1887).¹⁰  That is, the grand jury may have indicted Marolda only because the United States attorney represented to it that the credit card expenditures were not actually authorized by or of benefit to the union. "(T)he settled rule in the federal courts (is) that an indictment may not be amended except by resubmission to the grand jury, unless the charge is merely a matter of form." Russell v. United States, 369 U.S. 749, 770, 82 S. Ct. 1038, 1050, 8 L. Ed. 2d 240 (1962). The change effectuated here by the jury instruction was no mere matter of form.

This case, therefore, differs from those which hold that an effectively deleted portion of an indictment was surplusage. For example, in United States v. Cirami, 510 F.2d 69 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 964, 95 S. Ct. 1952, 44 L. Ed. 2d 451 (1975), whether a corporation or its principal officers were liable for the taxes in the prosecution of the latter for attempted tax evasion was irrelevant to the charge, although the liability had been incorrectly stated in the indictment. The court correctly concluded that there was no " * * * substantial likelihood that the grand jury would have failed to indict the appellants for their actions in wilfully filing false returns even if the grand jurors had understood that the taxes were due from the corporation and not from the appellants." 510 F.2d at 73. Cases in this circuit, too, have held that immaterial changes in indictments caused by the wording of jury instructions were in effect the removal of surplusage. See, e. g., United States v. Anderson, 532 F.2d 1218, 1228 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 839, 97 S. Ct. 111, 50 L. Ed. 2d 107 (1976); United States v. Dawson, 516 F.2d 796, 799-804 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 423 U.S. 855, 96 S. Ct. 104, 46 L. Ed. 2d 80 (1975); United States v. Edwards, 465 F.2d 943, 949-50 (9th Cir. 1972). It was held in these cases that the defendants had not been deprived of their Fifth Amendment right to be tried on a grand jury indictment.

However, this circuit has also held indictment language to be "mere" surplusage in situations in which the likelihood of a grand jury indictment with that language omitted was by no means a foregone conclusion. See, e. g., United States v. Kartman, 417 F.2d 893, 894-5 (9th Cir. 1969) (conviction reversed on other grounds) (defendant's knowledge of official status of victim of forcible assault held surplusage since such knowledge was not element of crime); United States v. Harvey, 428 F.2d 782, 784-85 (9th Cir. 1970) ("wilfully" and "feloniously" held surplusage in indictment for assault with deadly weapon or force).

Nevertheless, the excluded language in this case cannot be similarly characterized as a nonprejudicial striking of surplusage. Marolda points out that the court's treatment of the authorization and benefit issues at the conclusion of all the evidence severely prejudiced his defense, a major portion of which had been devoted to showing that his expenditures were properly authorized and served a union purpose.

It should be noted that the question of prejudice was addressed in nearly all the cited cases in which surplusage was subsequently deleted from an indictment. For example, in United States v. Harvey, supra at 785, the court found that the defendant was not prejudiced by the omission of "wilfully" from the indictment. Even though his whole defense at trial was structured on rebuttal of the stringent intent requirement of the indictment, by evidence of intoxication at the time of the shooting, the court concluded that he was not prejudiced because he had no other defense available to him anyway. Here, however, Marolda might well have chosen to testify as to his subjective state of mind, rather than to rely on evidence of union authorization and benefit, if he had known that the court would not allow those issues to go to the jury as defenses to the charge.

This case is also wholly unlike United States v. Kartman, supra, where the court's examination of the record revealed that the defendant was aware of the government's statutory position that it need not prove knowledge of the victim's official status from the beginning of the trial. In Kartman, only the emphasis, but not the substance of the defense presentation may have been affected by the indictment. In contrast, union authorization was a contested issue throughout the trial here, with the government telling the jury in the opening statement that it would prove absence of authorization. Marolda remained unaware until the end of the trial that nonauthorization would be virtually removed from the case. And, as already mentioned, the substance of the defense presentation was no doubt affected by the court's language making authorization virtually irrelevant.

The prejudice in this case is akin to that found in United States v. Behenna, 552 F.2d 573 (4th Cir. 1977). The defendant there was convicted of knowingly making a particularized false statement in connection with his purchase of a gun in South Carolina. It was clear that he had lied about his residence address, but the indictment did not charge him with that falsehood, even though that charge would have been sufficient to establish a violation under the statute. The indictment, rather, charged him with making a false statement as to his state of residence, and his primary defense had been geared to establishing that he reasonably and honestly believed he was a South Carolina resident at the time of purchase. The court held that the jury instructions which excluded his asserted belief as a defense to the specific charge in the indictment constituted prejudicial error.

The error created in this case may have been due in part to the confusion existing in the circuits as to the elements of the offense under 29 U.S.C. § 501(c). However, having charged Marolda as it did in the indictment, the government was bound to show that the expenditures were neither properly authorized by nor beneficial to the union.

Revised.

LARSON, Senior District Judge (concurring):

With a degree of reluctance I join with the majority in finding that the defendant was prejudiced by the variance between the indictment and the jury instructions. My hesitance stems from doubts that the defendant has suffered any real prejudice, and from a belief that defendant contributed to this problem. His attorney submitted requested jury instructions which were largely adopted by the trial court. Despite these misgivings, I find the majority opinion persuasive.

What may be equally important here is for the Court to clearly establish the elements of this crime to prevent future confusion. Careful review of the legislative history¹  of § 501(c) convinces me that neither lack of authorization nor lack of union benefit are necessary elements of this crime. Congress was merely transmuting common law theft crimes involving union funds and committed by union officers or employees into Federal crimes. The purpose in doing this was to provide an additional forum for prosecution of these crimes.

I am not certain why courts began to add new elements to § 501(c) crimes. There is some suggestion that this stemmed from the language of § 501(a), which places fiduciary duties on union officers, and requires that they hold union funds solely for union benefit and expend those funds only as authorized by the union. The legislative history clearly shows that no linkage was intended between the § 501(a) fiduciary duties and the § 501(c) crimes. In fact, the two provisions were added to the bill at different times. My understanding is that Congress' intent was to create a crime with the same elements as common law crimes. The courts should not add new elements not desired by Congress.

One of the elements of any of the theft crimes enumerated in § 501(c) will be criminal intent. The government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant possessed the requisite intent. Lack of authorization or lack of union benefit could be relevant evidence on this issue, but the government should not be forced to prove them as elements of the crime. Similarly, the presence or absence of good faith on the part of the defendant is merely another factor in determining intent. A defendant could not simultaneously possess both criminal intent and a good faith belief that he was properly spending the union's money. A judge could properly instruct a jury that all these factors may be considered in deciding whether the government has established criminal intent beyond a reasonable doubt, but the prosecution should not bear the burden of establishing each factor as an element of the crime.

This view of the elements of a § 501(c) crime is supported not only by the legislative history, but also by sound policy. The whole purpose of this reform legislation was to correct abuse of position and power by union officials. The statute was intended to be applied broadly to provide maximum protection for union members and the general public. Union officials should not be allowed to escape conviction by arranging for authorization of their misuse of funds. Nor should the fact that a wrongful expenditure of funds incidentally benefits the union excuse an official's wrongful acts. The possibility for abuse is so great that only a very broad criminal statute can provide an effective deterrent and mechanism for punishment.